


Midair

by ivyspinners



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Forum: Goldenlake, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:56:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyspinners/pseuds/ivyspinners
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lark in Tharios - if only for a moment or two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midair

In the multitude of her jewel-bright dreams set in gaudy Khapik, not one -- not a single one -- had featured her doubling over wracked with coughs, as a cloud of perfume spread out somewhere above her head. She had long been old enough to remember the ease of drawing breath, the difficulty of choking any of it out, but it was habit, rather than a clear head, that made her fumble for the tiny vial of oil and let some drip onto her finger. When she touched the oil to her throat, her windpipes expanded, and she gasped and choked until her head stopped swimming.

Two minutes later, she was rushing onto stage, back-flipping in a blur of silk, once again letting her automatic reactions take over. The audience was waiting.

 

The troupe she had been stationed with had made it clear, from the day she joined, that her problems were her own. The performance master cared nothing for her behavior offstage as long as it did not drag the troupe into her messes. On stage was a different story. She would spin, dance, and startle the audience with acrobatic grace at every performance. No exceptions.

She was seventeen and her only claim to identity lay in the distant soils in which she left her footprints, and her ability to leap from atop a human pyramid to land so lightly, so gracefully, the sound was barely discernible unless their audience made no noise. Silk sometimes felt like an old friend, and wool trailed her fingers when she dragged them through another woman's clothing, but these were little things. It did not seem important that she could pick out the quirks of one weaver over another as though their products were people, or that she could see between two painfully entangled emotions in her friends and decide the best way to comfort, until she arrived in the place where every third woman could tumble as well as she hoped to one day.

Only then did the affirmation arrive that the places she had been, and the things she could see, and the emotions that were so raw that they pained her, was what really separated her from the crowd.

 

The troupe master had told her that she was a part of the performance and expected to do her job, nothing more or less, but that never stopped her from trying to find something refreshing at each tumbling practice to soften the monotony of drills. It did not occur to her that 'something' could be other people until she had invited the rest of the troupe into her life on a whim, and discovered she couldn't imagine them ever leaving.

Maybe her friends felt the same way, because on their first free day, they took her to the highest point in the city, where the wind was cool enough for her bright yellow scarf to become slightly useful. Up in the open air, she could see the entirety of the city spread out like brightly colored tiles. It was, apparently, so that she would be able to step into yet another unique pile of dust, to add to her collection of footsteps in distant, unlikely places.

She only laughed, searching for any discernible sign for the hall at which they worked, far below and within the very noticeable walls of Khapik. But the sun shone at such an angle that everything below seemed to merge together in a swirl of bright colors, and the only things she could see clearly were the friends nudging each other, behind her.


End file.
